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Sunday, 21 December 2008

Christmas Shopping

I have just laid out all my Christmas presents to start wrapping them, and the smug feeling I had on buying them early has evaporated like morning mist.

I could have sworn the pile looked an impressive bounty when it was still hidden in carrier bags, yet out of the bags and it appears all I have bought this year is an angry tomato magnet.

Okay, well there are a few more things than the magnet (which is for a friend that hates tomatoes; she'll love it), but pushing it altogether and I am worried. I have also left it far too late to go out shopping today, so will have to do everything tomorrow and Tuesday, which is of course when I am out of town visiting folk. I shall have to strive to be pleasant company yet dive off into shops at every given opportunity.

You’d think, honestly, that what with one thing or another, this year I should have had time to a) make own cards, b) gift-wrap all presents in the style of Country Living photo shoot c) bake own confectionary range and d) do this all well before now. Instead I have made all the cards, but not posted them yet, I have wrapped two presents more in the style of crap-wrap, I have not been near a baking tray since the cheesecake / biscuit concoction of 2007, and still have nigh on everything to do. Agh!

So – the plan for the rest of today is to wrap my meagre little pile and then make a cunning list in order to get everything sorted before Christmas Eve. I do not want the usual Christmas Eve panic, still sticking everything in sight at midnight, whilst glugging down glasses of Baileys. Instead I want to be welcoming visitors to my garland-covered front door wearing some sort of fabulous gown. Actually, I want to be in that Marks and Spencer’s advert, lounging around with Twiggy and Take That. I bet none of them spend Christmas Eve picking cat hair off their Sellotape.

I always end up drunk and wrapping at midnight on Christmas Eve however organised I think I've been!I also always end up going over budget because of late panic buying. Still it's all part of the fun. Sort of...Have a very happy Christmas!

Jayne Ferst

In the 1970s a girl was born and sent to school for a crime she didn't commit. That girl finally escaped from a dull comprehensive into the lost artistic underground. Today, still wanted by her job, she survives as a writer of fortune. If you need a story, if no one else can help, and if you remember the A Team theme tune, maybe you can sing it with me.